Praetor suit

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The Doom Slayer in his Praetor suit in Doom 2016.

The Praetor suit is the Doom Slayer's powered combat exoskeleton in Doom (2016) and in Doom Eternal, a powerful suit of armor of mysterious origins which was entombed by the demons of Hell in solid rock in an attempt to keep him from obtaining it if he were ever again to awaken. The UAC found both him and his suit during a special expedition into Hell by Dr. Samuel Hayden and brought the two back to the UAC Mars Base as a contingency against the chance of a demonic invasion. It is heavily modified in the events of Doom Eternal, sporting a wrist blade on the left wrist, along with other features.

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The Praetor suit is a formidable device. Aside from basic defensive characteristics which can be augmented through the use of armor, it includes basic life support functions and, with sufficient upgrades, can add increasing protection against certain types of damage such as self-inflicted splash back or damage from exploding barrels. It can be upgraded with the Delta V jump-boots to add a thruster-powered mid-air jump.

The helmet of the Praetor suit has a context sensitive HUD which displays health status, armor, the currently equipped weapon and its ammunition, status of the BFG-9000 and chainsaw, current objectives met within the area, and other relevant information. It also serves as a display for the suit's built-in database, the Codex, which stores any information on enemies, weapons, and lore that the player comes across, and for the automap. This HUD can also highlight items and enemies in real time, showing the types of items in the environment with different glows (blue for health, green for armor, red for ammunition), and revealing when stunned enemies have become vulnerable to a glory kill. Some elements of this highlighting are optional and can be toggled on or off by the player.

The Praetor suit also has an impact compensation system which allows its wearer to suffer large falls without taking falling damage. This capability has its limits, however; fatal fall zones still exist as an element in the game, but these are usually obviously different than simple cliffs or ledges from which the player is able to survive a fall. Very tall areas can also become hazardous once the suit's limits are exceeded; this can happen in the Argent Tower.

The suit is retrofit with collectors for Argent energy in the chest plate and right fist, and the latter of these can be taken advantage of to allow use of Argent cells, which upgrade the marine's basic intrinsic statistics, including health, armor level, and ammunition carrying capacity.

The Praetor suit is said by the demons to have been forged, or at least upgraded, by a traitor to Hell's cause known only as "the wretch," and their writings claim that the suit was made in Hell itself. Despite this, the suit bears markings in English with Arabic numerals, and seems to have been manufactured by human corporations. This suggests that the actual origin of the suit may lie in another dimension from which the Doom Slayer originally came, eventually finding the Well and becoming the leader of the Night Sentinels. The game heavily suggests but never states with any certainty that this origin could be explained in one of the other games of the Doom series.

At some time after the Doom Slayer's defeat of the last Titan, the demons managed to separate him from the suit and seal him into a sarcophogus inside an ancient temple which they then collapsed onto him. The suit was itself then sealed into the solid rock where it was later found by the UAC.

It was not initially possible to use the Praetor suit in the game's multiplayer modes, nor when playing SnapMap levels. These capabilities were added to the game in update 5, however. In the case of multiplayer, a player must attain Echelon 11 rank (the highest ranking) in order to unlock the Praetor suit for use in online matches.

During the E3 2015Bethesda presentation the Doomguy's helmet had an "F90" designation. In the final release of the game, this writing is replaced with a rune-like symbol which seems to stand for the Doom Slayer himself, or for the Night Sentinels in general.

In Latin, a praetor was an elected magistrate of the Roman Republic who was in charge of the administration of civil justice, a rank just below that of consul, or alternately, the commander of an army. Likewise, the Praetorian Guard (Latin: Praetoriani) was a force of bodyguards used by Roman emperors. Either of these positions may be a reference to the Doom Slayer's roles as judge and executioner to the hellspawn, and to his role as leader of the Night Sentinels.